Netsparker: the best OWASP Zap Alternative

Apart from access control, rock solid session management, and not using components with known vulnerabilities, as a security professional you also need to identify and fix the security vulnerabilities your web applications have. Software security is a must!

In order to identify common web application security vulnerabilities like SQL Injection, Cross-site scripting (XSS), Command Injection, and others featured on the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) Top 10 list, most IT teams understand how crucial it is that they employ an automated web security tool to help identify known vulnerabilities. For one thing, guarding against sensitive data exposure is important in today's business environment, so having a robust application security testing tools at your disposal is a key partner in this endeavor.

Netsparker's web application security scanner is an ideal starting point for building your security program, to ensure that you do not find yourself in the camp of those with insufficient attack protection. Available as a Windows desktop application or as a Cloud based online service, our security scanner is different from the rest.

For starters, it uses our unique Proof-based Scanning™ technology to ensure that there are no false positives. Netsparker does this by providing you with a proof of exploit report and confirmation of vulnerabilities identified. This sets us apart from the competition.

Yes, there are many web application security testing tools that can provide IT solutions. But when compared to Netsparker, others, such as OWASP Zap (Open Source Zed Attack Proxy) do not even compete.

Consistent and High-Quality Customer Support

While an open source web application security scanner like OWASP Zap provides users with options to try software and applications with low entry barriers, there isn't a consistent delivery of service, which is a risk you want to avoid. OWASP Zap users report a lack of up-to-date documentation when they are looking for answers or to troubleshoot problems, and non existing product support. But in contrast, Netsparker offers extensive product documentation and solid support to address any issues that may arise with its application via phone and online support.

Advanced Security Testing

When measured against Netsparker, it is easy to see that a tool like OWASP Zap is not nearly as advanced and thorough. Though Netsparker's user interface is clearly uncluttered, behind-the-scenes, it features advanced vulnerability assessment technology that can crawl deep into any type of web application, tests thousands of different attack vectors and pinpoint security flaws that malicious hackers can exploit. OWASP Zap doesn't offer the advanced level of security testing that Netsparker brings to the table.

No False Positives

Further, in an independent web vulnerability scanners comparison, Netsparker was the only scanner that identified all vulnerabilities and did not report any false positives. Netsparker does so by automatically exploiting the identified vulnerabilities in a safe and read only way. Once it exploits them it also highlights the impact of the exploited vulnerability. For example in case of a SQL Injection vulnerability, the scanner includes the data it managed to extract from the web application by exploiting the vulnerability.

This confirms the breadth of of our vulnerability coverage and detection accuracy.

Scanning for a Broader Range of Vulnerabilities

As a website owner you need to find all possible security vulnerabilities, regardless if your site is running on HTTPS or not. You should scan your website for more than just the vulnerabilities listed in the OWASP Top 10 list, because the attacker only needs one vulnerability to exploit to create a havoc.

To address this, Netsparker developed Netsparker Hawk, a vulnerability testing platform our solutions use to identify even the most complex of vulnerabilities, such as Out-of-Band SQL Injection, Blind Cross-site Scripting (XSS), Server Side Request Forgery (SSRF) and other out-of-band and async security vulnerabilities.

Scan any type of Web Application and Web API

Netsparker's exclusive and precise crawling technology crawls any type of modern and custom built web application, including HTML 5, Web 2.0 application and Single Page Applications (SPA), regardless if it was built PHP, .NET, Ruby on Rails or JAVA.

Netsparker also scans and automatically identifies vulnerabilities in traditional web services, such as WSDL ones, and modern REST APIs. During a target scan Netsparker also acts as a web server security software: it scans the web servers, be it Apache, IIS or Nginx and highlights any security misconfigurations the server might have.

Generate OWASP Top 10 and Other Compliance Reports

Once the automated web vulnerability scan is ready you can use the reporting tool to generate any type of report. With Netsparker you can generate a detailed technical report for developers and security professionals, an executive summary for your management, and OWASP Top 10, HIPAA and PCI DSS compliance reports to check if your website adheres to the compliance regulations.

Try a Free Trial of the Netsparker Web Application Security Solution

Sign up for a free trial today and boost your web application penetration testing. See why our web vulnerability scanner beats other scanning tools for security auditing. Our best-in-class vulnerability scanning software is chosen by many leading companies and organizations across industries to keep their information secure and their online reputation safe. Try a free demo today.